American Jewish collective memory is filled with images of rallies, strikes, newspapers, and party meetings. Likewise, scholars and surveys, novels and movies, songs and poems have all noted the overrepresentation of Jews in movements dedicated to widespread political and social change like socialism, communism, trade unionism, anarchism, Yiddish culture, feminism, the new left, and even neo-conservatism. What explains the heavy involvement of Jews in such political movements? How does a closer look at this phenomenon shed light on Jewish history? What does it tell us about the American Jewish experience as well as life in the United States? Is it possible to assess the relationship between politics, political expression, and Jewish self-identification as Americans? Using secondary sources, historical documents, and public culture, this seminar will explore the histories, ideologies, and significances of Jewish political radicalism in the United States. In addition, students will engage in a substantial original research project based on primary source materials found in relevant archival institutions. Seminar. (HIST 204-402)

This course is about the enormous difficulties faced by those who felt the urgent need to describe their own or others' experiences during the genocide of the European Jews, 1933-1945. We will explore the complex options they have faced as narrators, witnesses, allegorists, memoirists, scholars, teachers, writers and image-makers. Some linguistically (or visually) face the difficulty head on; most evade, avoid, repress, stutter or go silent, and agonize. Part of the purpose of the course is for us to learn how to sympathize with the struggle of those in the latter group. This is not a history course, although the vicissitudes of historiography will be a frequent topic of conversation. Although the course will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30 to 3, there will be several required sessions outside those times. Students who enroll in the course must make themselves available for these. One will be a one-day screening of the 9.5-hour film SHOAH on a Sunday in October. Another special session will involve meeting with someone who will report first-hand from a contemporary genocide (in Darfur). Students will write frequent short papers, called "position papers," due often and always before class in order to provide a basis for discussion. The manner of teaching will be discussion, never lecture. Students need not know anything about the Holocaust in order to take the course, although enrollees should consider historical reading over the summer. Seminar. Fulfills Distribution III: Arts and Letters. (ENGL 261, CINE 330)

This course is a seminar covering inscriptions in Hebrew of the Biblical period, such as the Gezer Calendar, the Arad and Lachish letters, and numerous other inscriptions. The course will read these texts and examine their linguistic features, but will primarily will focus on the ways these texts are useful in Biblical studies. The historical and linguistic information gleaned from these texts, and the use of this information in studying Biblical history and interpreting the Hebrew Bible will be central to the course. (If time and staff availability permit, the course will also cover postbiblical inscriptions of the Second Temple and Mishnaic-Talmudic periods.) Prerequisite: Ability to read an unpointed Hebrew text and facility in the Hebrew Bible. (HEBR 555)

This seminar will explore the definition(s) of monotheism, the date of its development in Israel (whether in the patriarchal, Mosaic or a later period), biblical, iconographic and epigraphic evidence, the question of whether monotheism existed elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the status of idolatry in ancient Israel, and related questions. Prerequisites: Fluent reading knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and permission of the instructor. Since the content of this course may change from year to year students may take it for credit more than once (if the course is indeed different). Seminar. Fulfills Distribution III: Arts & Letters. (HEBR 556, RELS 620)